Wednesday, February 12, 2014

A look back

Tomorrow, day before Valentine's Day, is my birthday.  It will be the beginning of my final year in my 40s. This makes me think about what I might want to accomplish in this upcoming year before achieving age 50. Before figuring that out, I thought I would look back at what my forties have brought so far. Wow. Here's a list of five things in each of three categories (family, fitness, career) that quickly came to mind:

Family
  • Watched my kids grow up before my eyes.  At age 40, they were 11 and 13. Both were in middle school. One was newly a teen. At age 49, they are 20 and 22.  Both are in college.  One is graduating this year! The other is engaged!
  • Experienced the loss of both my father (2009) and my mother (2014).
  • Celebrated a 20th wedding anniversary, and am now preparing to celebrate a 25th.
  • Lots of family vacations throughout, but started vacationing just with Husband more frequently as the kids have gotten older.
  • Experienced the loss of one old dog and then another and then another. Eventually added a new cat to the family, then a new dog, and another dog. One cat was constant throughout this period.
Fitness 
  • Learned to swim!
  • Bought a bike.  And then another bike.
  • Became a triathlete, runner, and cyclist.  
  • Completed over 75 run/cycle/tri events thus far after having completed fewer than five in the entire decade prior.
  • Became a part of the community of weekend athletes. Started Blogging. Joined a run group. Made new friends.
Career
  • Worked in the same organization in the company, but held different positions and gained new skills.  
  • Received some fairly significant recognition at work; also won an iPad in a work-sponsored contest.
  • Traveled outside the US a handful of times for work.
  • Taught classes/workshops at work and now am taking graduate classes for myself.
  • Enjoyed two sabbaticals, a benefit we get every 7 years.

19 comments:

  1. Happy birthday!
    Very beautiful post.

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  2. This is lovely and gives me a warm fuzzy. What a fulfilling and warm life.

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  3. Happy Birthday a tad early. Looks like the 40's were a good decade for you.

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    1. Thank you, and I agree, the 40s have been good to me

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  4. You've done so much in the last decade. It'll be interesting to see what the next one brings. Happy Birthday.

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    1. I"m excited to see what the next one brings! But first I need to finish off this decade of my life. One more year until the big 5-0

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  5. Happy birthday! You have done a lot. This is a good idea.

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    1. It's amazing when you look back over a decade...

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  6. Love this idea - it's amazing when you look back and really see all that happened. Have a happy birthday!

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  7. Happy birthday!!! I wish you all the best and many PR's!!

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    1. Thank you. Not sure about the PRs, especially with the run:walk, but I'll try to have a great year anyway!

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  8. This is a great post idea!! I love it and I love seeing everything you have done!

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    1. I'm glad I did it, it's good for me to look back

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  9. Happy birthday Lisa, and congratulations on such an amazing list of milestones and wonderful memories! Here's to creating many more over the coming years, and a great celebration today :)

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  10. Thank you, thank you, thank you!

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  11. Happy belated birthday, Lisa! I love this idea of looking back over the past decade and all its challenges and milestones!

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